The discount retailer CEO said in a statement that his company pays a starting wage of $11.50 across the country and is “still able to keep our overhead costs low.”

The current federal minimum wage is $7.25 an hour. Had it kept up with inflation since its 1968 peak, it would now be $10.58. A minimum wage that had kept up with both inflation and increasing productivity would now be worth $21.72 an hour.

Costco is known as a big box retail store with unusually good working conditions and wages. New York Times labor reporter Steven Greenhouse has described it as the “anti-Walmart,” due in part to its relatively high wages and low turnover. In a November 29 interview with Greenhouse regarding Costco’s labor practices, The Ed Show’sEd Schultz said, “This is how you treat workers.”

Comparatively, Walmart’s starting wages can be as low as $8 an hour, with annual increases of as little as 20 or 40 cents. For someone working 40 hours a week without any vacation time that amounts to $16,640 a year.

In late November, researchers at Demos argued that raising the retail industry’s wage floor to $25,000 a year would “impact more than 5 million retail workers,” and “lift 734,000 people out of poverty” while raising the cost of retail goods by only a few cents.